Family Natters

My Jambalaya requires only 1 pan, 9 easy-to-come-by ingredients and 15 minutes of preparation time. It is healthy wholemeal brown rice, tomatoes, onions, kidney beans, red peppers, peas plus (if you wish) the meat or fish of your choice. A Cajun favourite of mine that gives you your 5 portions of veg with easy.
Utensils
big frying pan […]

I was recently invited to a surprise birthday party for a girl at work called Lyn. James wasn’t keen because he didn’t know anyone and because he would be missing a football match, but I dragged him along anyway and we arrived soon after it was due to start, about 8:30.
It was quite busy, and […]

Mums often want to know if their babies are making good progress. A list of movement milestones health visitors and other professionals expect to see in a 4 month baby follows:

turns head to side when placed on tummy

moves head to side while lying on back

lifts and momentarily supports head when held with head at […]

Just recently Tom (6) has developed an obsession for hoovering. Quite bizzarly, it’s become one of his main interests, preferred even to TV and his bike!
I’m afraid I’m using it to my advantage, cruel mother that I am. For example, he has to do any homework and eat all his tea before he […]

The thyroid becomes underactive when antibodies damage and destroy it.
Symptoms

weight gain

lack of energy

hair loss

dry, thick skin

a puffy face

Treatment A simple blood test diagnoses the condition. Then thyroid tablets are prescribed which have to be taken for life but which usually completely clear the symptoms.

Sometimes parents are given attainment levels on their children’s school reports. But what do they mean?
Basically levels are a description of what your child has achieved. Teachers expect children to achieve a level 2 by the end of year 2 (age 6 – 7), and a level 4 by the end of year […]

In my last post (Banned from unsupervised access to Chocolate Spread) I mentioned being incredibly embarrassed. Well, that was nothing compared with my first day at work as a factory manager.
It was a responsible job and as I was in charge of over 30 people, I made a real effort on my first day […]

Embarassed is an understatement!  Only a few hours after I had my healthy eating talk with Tom (see post Lolly Sticks behind the Sofa), he walked in on my eating Cadbury’s chocolate spread straight out of the jar.  Ut-oh!
So now, he’s going to hide it from me, and I have to ask him for it […]

Yesterday Tom offered to help me unpack the shopping. I should have smelled a rat straight away, but it wasn’t until I started finding used lolly sticks all over the house, that I realised he’d had an ulterior motive. This is a list of the places I’ve found them so far:

on the wash […]

Surely Kate and Gerry McCann did not kill their daughter, Madeleine. I just don’t believe that anyone could be so selfish as to sedate their child just so he or she could enjoy an evening out. Likewise it can’t be possible that they could go to the tapas bar and pretend everything was fine if […]